Injuries to Eyes and Teeth: Common But Preventable

Because the use of mouth guards in youth and high school football, lacrosse, and ice hockey has been mandatory since the early 1970's, these sports have experienced a dramatic decline in the number of dental and jaw injuries. Instead, published reports show that the majority of mouth injuries occur in such popular youth sports as baseball, basketball, soccer, field hockey, softball and gymnastics, which lag far behind in injury protection. Recent studies also report that oral and facial injuries to female athletes exceed those in males.

Eye injuries are the leading cause of blindness in children. Sports are the major cause of eye-injuries in school-age children, with up to 30% of the injuries occurring to children under the age of 16.

Our goal is to provide comprehensive information on the prevention and treatment of eye, mouth and jaw injuries in youth sports. If you don’t find what you are looking for, we invite you to e mail MomsTeam, or better yet, pose your question to the MomsTeam community of parents and experts (of which you are an important part) by clicking on the Forums tab at the top of the page to find the appropriate forum in which to ask your question or start a new one. Together as a team, we can make youth sports a safer place for everyone.